This area is reserved for the tidbits I know hope will be of interest to my readers. Check back often for regular updates.

Check out this article about the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomena, including a list of organizations which strongly oppose this sick trend, and have implemented various means of helping women who have been sexually victimized.

Were you raised by a narcissist? Chances are you were if you suffered any form of childhood abuse. The Little Red Survivor website is filled with excellent articles examining the many faces of narcissism.

It's been a long time coming---7 years to be exact---but finally email notifications for new BD posts is available. Sign up today and never again miss another post. You know you want to!

Kate Is Rising has an excellent Survivors Resources page which directs you to numerous websites dealing with issues of abuse, healing and recovery. Please bear in mind that the information on these pages may be triggering.

There's lots of good stuff at the Dissociation Blog Showcase, including a list of 180 blogs dealing with some aspect of this disorder.

On the Overcoming Sexual Abuse site there's an article entitled, "It's Not About You Mom" which I could have written myself. I bet many of my readers could say the same!

I live in a house of prostitution. My mother, the madam, blends in effortlessly with the neighborhood mothers on the block in her suburban muu-muus, hair in pink plastic rollers.

My customer, the only john I lie with, is the wicked stepfather, King of the Mountain. He takes me at will upon their expensive mahogany bed whenever the mood strikes. If I want, I can watch our intertwined reflection in the mirror of my mother’s low slung dresser. But I choose not to be a voyeur to my own shame. Nor will I look at his erection when he orders me to, and will not touch it though his anger sears my ear, and he pushes its warmth against my leg or attempts to thrust its fullness into my child-sized hand.

There is never an exchange of money, for my mother discreetly handles the financial aspects of this arrangement. I am merely the commodity by which she is able to live her dream of American middle class suburbia. When she surveys her brand new domain with its wall to wall, shiny appliances, double garage, comparing these luxuries with the poverty of her earlier years, the price of my exploitation must seem cheap indeed.

Whore though I am, I depend on TheKing of the Mountain to teach me all the things about sex my classmates must learn from bathroom walls and giggled whispers.

Mother keeps a very clean, respectable whorehouse. Sometimes it’s difficult believing thatshe is the madam. When I see her with dust cloth or broom in hand, her face devoid of make-up, I have trouble reconciling her housewifely self with this unassailable fact. She knows how to give the house a good scrub down; there are no cobwebs in the nooks and crannies, no dust-balls lazing under beds to shock sensitive sensibilities.

We, my step/half siblings and I, come to the table well-groomed. Our nails are reasonably clean, hair combed. We eat well-balanced meals based on the four food groups. My appetite is a bottomless pit. I’m my mother’s best eater. This seems to please her, and she comments on it often.

We say grace before meals, for we are a churchgoing family (except for The King of the Mountain who lolligags on the couch in his undies, watching TV, while we traipse off devotedly to a house of worship.) He frequently cracks us up in the middle of someone’s stammered prayer with a wise-ass remark. My mother gives him a stern look, her eyebrows lifting above the pointy frame of her glasses in disapproval, the same expression she gives us kids when we misbehave. (Though he is King of the Mountain, which implies that he’s top dog, he nevertheless must be kept in line. Defiling a child is one thing, snickering during prayer quite another. This Madam runs a tight ship!)

We all have our appointed chores: dishes and garbage detail. We groan and complain, all the while knowing it’s pointless to stall, but doing it just the same. This is mother’s hard won empire, and she will not tolerate a sink full of dirty dishes, or anything which smacks of disorderliness.

We’re not a happy family. We’re miserly with our affections, taking our cues from our role models. There is no passion here, except for that which takes place in the master bedroom. Joking nearly always expresses itself in the form of biting sarcasm, and cutting remarks at the expense of others. I’m often the butt of The King of the Mountain’s jokes: I’m a klutz, I’m ugly, I can’t do anything right. I’m flat-chested, my feet are too big. My mother tolerates his remarks and twisted sense of humor. After all, it is just one of the prices she pays for the privilege of living in sidewalked suburbia and driving a new car, carrying credit cards instead of cash in her leather wallet. (Besides, and this is worth noting, she is rarely the target of his caustic jokes.)

All things considered, mother doesn’t have it so bad. If she can’t bear the weight of his belly slapping against her pelvic bone, I’m there to take up the slack. I can’t bear it either, but I am too young and powerless to have a vote, and too strong and proud to let them see me cry.

2 Responses to “House of Prostitution”

thank you for sharing this. i can imagine how hard it was to write this here. we are so sorry that your mother victimized you and hurt you in these ways and more, as well as your step-father’s torture and abuse.

we hear you and wish you peace and healing. you deserve so much goodness and we see the beauty that is within you/s.

we cannot tell you what your words bring back, all too well. the hypocrisy of the mothers in situations such as yours and ours is or was unforgiveable to us. how a mother could offer up her own children is beyond me. yet i sadly know how true it really is, as do you. isn’t it amazing how father had no qualms visiting us or having us come to him yet he would call us names like ugly or fatty or whatever. if we were so ugly why the hell didn’t he leave us alone?